Excerpt from the YouTube video description:
This HD video is narrated footage of my 85 Prot Pally in Cataclysm Patch v4.0.3a in Arena 2v2 with an Enhancement Shaman, Kashmír. This is my fourth Arena video for Cataclysm for Season 9.
We started the week at 2002 Rating and finished at 2005, with a record for the week of 31-25. It was an up-and-down week but we continued to learn a lot from our mistakes – hopefully you will too :)
Last week was not a great week for us – we had a couple ugly slumps, but we managed to dig ourselves out. We finished the week ranked at #221. I looked through the top 200 teams on Shadowburn, and there were 0 Prot Pallies and 7 Enhancement Shamans.
Last night (Tuesday) we did go 6-2, which raised our rating to 2036 and our ranking to #175 in our battlegroup. Onward, upward!
Opposing Comps
- DK / Holy Paladin
- Mage / Shadow Priest
- Mage / Resto Druid
- Rogue / Resto Shaman
- Rogue / Shadow Priest
- Rogue / Feral Druid
- Mage / Shadow Priest
- Mage / Rogue
- Mage / Warrior
Tips
- As discussed in the video, Kashmír switched from 8/33 to 5/33/3, putting points into the Spark of Life talent. For a dual-DPS comp that has been a great move, as I have an easier time keep his HP up with my healing
- One thing I forgot to mention in the video: if we know that we are facing a Caster/stealth MDPS comp, we have Kashmír wait out of LoS, so that when the MDPS opens up on him, the Caster has to ride around the pillar to DPS Kashmír. This buys us valuable time until we can get control of the situation
- I treat Divine Shield as a second trinket. Long gone are the days where a non-Holy Pally can bubble and heal to full. I can heal about 30-35% of my HP while bubbled
- As I said in the video, against Rogue/DPS comps, I will break Sap with my PVP trinket, because these fights go quick and if I ride out the Sap duration the outcome may already be determined. This isn’t 1v1, where you wait out the Sap against a Rogue
- Check out my Prot Pally PVP Guide for the full scoop on the Prot spec, including my take on the upcoming changes for Prot in 4.0.6 (Rebuke!!!)
If you have a questions for Kashmír or me, please post ’em below.
P.S. there are over 330 comments posted on the Prot Pally PVP Guide – there are dozens of Pallies sharing their tips and tactics there, and I am glad to see the Guide grow as a resource for the community.
P.P.S. blog readers and players from other servers in BGs been kind enough to express their thanks for the material I’ve been posting. One player last night found a funny way of contacting me:
Taugrim's MMO Blog 
Nice video, keep on going :)
I think Priest used his Leap of Faith ability, the mage didn’t blink. So it was a fair fight i guess!
That’s a great bailout ability, well-timed by the Shadow Priest.
I guess that’s another good reason for us to focus-fire on the Shadow Priest when we face that comp! I only picked the Mage because he was the closer target, but that was a mistake.
Right, well you learn from your mistakes :)
I have a “stupid” question also, how often do you use Cleanse in arena? I mean is it worth it to waste a global CD to cleanse some diseases of DKs for example from you or from your partner?
I don’t use Cleanse very often. If I’m sitting there trying to Cleanse diseases, it means I’m not DPS’ing or healing, not building HoPo, and the DK is attacking and re-applying those debuffs.
I only Cleanse if I am kiting and out of range of a DK or Rogue and there is no other ability I’d rather use.
Back in WotLK, Cleanse was valuable for removing Magic-based snares (e.g. Mage Frost Nova), but that was removed from the base Cleanse ability in Cata.
Hello :) got a question for kashmir.
is it anyway you can record a session of arena in your POV? As a fellow enha shaman i would like to see from your eyes when you are doing arena^^
Hey, if you are interested on enhancement PoV i have a list of vids of hpriest&enh in my youtube channel “TheKomuri”, i will be posting there a vid every week or 2, also they might be posted here. That might help you ^^
Here’s the link to Kømuri’s video channel:
http://www.youtube.com/thekomuri
I tried embedding his videos here on this blog, but due to music copyright issues, his videos will only play on YouTube. So I’m not sure whether posting about the videos here adds much value to readers.
At any rate, go subscribe to Kømuri’s channel :)
Hey, Yeah i’ve seen some of the videos but because i live in sweden i cant see all of them due to copyright material :S Good material, but i cant watch all of the videos
Hey, first of all, good job you guys. Secondly I have a question revarding enh. Shamans. My partner and I are playing for the first week and almost reached 1600 rating up to now. It seems like I am getting way too much dmg also when using all my dmg reducing abilities. (I’ve got around 2,8/2.9k resil as I’m still gearing up). The only solution seems to hex one of the ddlers and kite around any pillar looking thing I can find. It seems like if I could keep doing dmg we would be far better off. Do you have any tips for me/us or tactics etc.? I would greatly appreciate this since it seems with that problem out of the way we’d be a lot more successful. Thanks for anything (almost) you can come up with^^.
Quick question before I reply in detail: are you a Prot / Enhancement comp, and which character is yours?
It sounds like you are the Shammy but I just want to make sure.
Let me know.
Oh, sorry, I’m the enh. Shamy and Yes we are Running prot/enhance.
It seems like I am getting way too much dmg also when using all my dmg reducing abilities. (I’ve got around 2,8/2.9k resil as I’m still gearing up).
OK, until you get full PVP gear – which I’m guessing you don’t based on your Resil – consider socketing some +40 Resil gems in Yellow sockets.
The only solution seems to hex one of the ddlers and kite around any pillar looking thing I can find. It seems like if I could keep doing dmg we would be far better off
It’s not an either/or thing.
If one of your opponents is MDPS, you want to strafe kite that MDPS around pillars while you DPS. This is key. I call this reverse-kiting. See video Volume 3:
https://taugrim.com/2011/01/08/wow-arena-2v2-video-protection-paladin-enhancement-shaman-1850-2000-rating/
This enables you to deal damage while preventing the 2nd enemy from healing the MDPS or from DPS’ing.
Meanwhile, your Prot Pally partner uses CS whenever it’s off cooldown to build up HoPo to heal you. The Pally should also stun the MDPS to reduce the damage you are taking, and pop other cooldowns to bridge you to your next Wolves. E.g. Hand of Sac, Holy Radiance, Hand of Protection, etc.
If you are standing out in the open fighting an MDPS, and their partner is RDPS or Healer, you are allowing the MDPS’s partner to freecast.
Thanks a Lot, we’ll ceep that in mind. I know its probably hard to say, but when is the “right” time to start kiting. Sometimes they open up on me and I notice I’l be going down quick, should I start kiting or should I do dmg and wait until my health is low. I figured that kiting early would distract them long enough until my hex might come off cooldown or just my dmg reduce.
Also, when kiting away from the opponents partner, I should still be doing dmg right? Not running away as a wolf.
Thankyou
I know its probably hard to say, but when is the “right” time to start kiting. Sometimes they open up on me and I notice I’l be going down quick, should I start kiting or should I do dmg and wait until my health is low. I figured that kiting early would distract them long enough until my hex might come off cooldown or just my dmg reduce.
If you wait too long, it’s too late. There isn’t much downside to kiting early.
The bottom line is you should start kiting before you really need to. Otherwise you’ll be in a heal deficit and screwed.
Also, when kiting away from the opponents partner, I should still be doing dmg right? Not running away as a wolf.
In general, yes. You can strafe (run sideways), still attack, still parry, and still build Maelstrom’s that you can use to insta self-heal.
In some situations where speed is key (i.e. you waited to long to start kiting), then Wolf form is appropriate.
Thanks
Hey bruh.
First off, I wanted to say how happy I am that I found your videos on youtube. I’d be absolutely lost right now with protadin pvp if I didn’t find them.
I have a few questions however.
How viable do you think a fire mage/protadin 2’s team would be?
And my second question is.
HotR, or Crusader strike? I tryed using CS, but it seemed like HotR hit harder. Is it because of splash damage from HotR could mess something up, or…?
How viable do you think a fire mage/protadin 2′s team would be?
Frost is far and away the best PVP spec for Mage right now. Frost has awesome CC, survivability, and very good burst damage. Frost/Prot would make an excellent 2’s comp.
Arcane and Fire kind of pale in comparison, so an Arcane/Prot or Fire/Prot comp won’t be anywhere near as strong as Frost/Prot.
HotR, or Crusader strike? I tryed using CS, but it seemed like HotR hit harder
For single targets, CS is much better than HotR, even against Plate.
Get Recount and do some target dummy testing, or just watch your Combat Log.
I glyphed SotR Taugrimm and I have to say that the damage difference between CS (when glyphed) & SotR (when glyphed) isn’t that big difference. And why I use SotR?
Because it procs AS like hell. Whenever you fight in 3’s or 5’s use SotR because you will hit 3 targets or something and chance to proc AS is much much higher.
Btw I have been playing with my friend Arms Warrior and he got like 2.5k resilience now and we still ain’t be able to hit 2k. We lack cc. For example rogue spriest is killing us in no time: I get sapped, I have to trinket otherwise my war friend is going down 50% even with divine sacrifice up. So then I get feared, bubble, now we try to nuke shadow priest down as hell. If that didn’t work while I am still in bubble, I get another cc and fight is pretty much over and out.
And I gem all the way strength now in prismatic & red sockets (blue gems). Blue socket = str + stam. Orange = Str + resilience. So I get very high damage :D
Blue socket = str + stam
Go with Str + Hit instead, better use of points. Then you can reforge some Hit to Crit.
I glyphed SotR Taugrimm and I have to say that the damage difference between CS (when glyphed) & SotR (when glyphed) isn’t that big difference. And why I use SotR?
You are confusing SotR and HotR. You mean HotR I assume. HotR damage sucks on single target. PVP is about single-target burst in WoW. In some games, you can AOE targets down (e.g. Warhammer), but that is not the case in WoW.
Because it procs AS like hell. Whenever you fight in 3′s or 5′s use SotR because you will hit 3 targets or something and chance to proc AS is much much higher.
HotR is a flat 20% chance to proc AS refresh, same with CS. Has nothing to do with how many targets you are hitting.
Btw I have been playing with my friend Arms Warrior and he got like 2.5k resilience now and we still ain’t be able to hit 2k
2.5k Resil = squishy, and it means he’s not in full 85 PVP gear yet.
If Warrior is getting focus fired, have him Fear Bomb, stance dance to Defensive, and put on a 1H + shield, and kite until you can heal him up. You should be spending all your HoPo on WoG healing him.
If he has the Warrior self-heal (can’t remember what it’s called) he should be popping that too.
Ight, thanks man. R
In your video you mention that “we need to keep the shaman in combat and in contact”. Why is that?
The previous night, he would drink behind a pillar while the Rogue pop’d cooldowns to CC and stay alive.
Oh i see. Also i am asking if resistance aura is better against Dks (they have frost and shadow dmg diseases). Cause i see that you use retribution in the first match on your video.
I run Retrib partly to burn the Healer’s mana faster. If we’re taking too much damage Resistance aura might be the better choice.